Leveling Down

Is two always better than one? Not necessarily if the second is AI-controlled…

The Resident Evil 5 demo was released to the Japanese Marketplace on Friday morning 12/5/08. American fans were not to be denied, as they began creating Japanese accounts to download the demo to their console. This was working for a while until Microsoft decided to institute a hardlock IP ban on downloads outside of Japan. Fortunately, gamers discovered a workaround in that you could actually download the demo to your PC, burn it onto a CD/DVD, and play the demo right off the disc on your 360 with no problems. Read on for my impressions of the demo.

My Resident Evil Background
I’ve been a huge fan of the Resident Evil series since the very first game on the Playstation 1. Through the years, I’ve played Resident Evil 1, Resident Evil 2, Resident Evil 3, Code Veronica, the Resident Evil 1 remake on the Gamecube, Resident Evil 0, and finally, Resident Evil 4. Resident Evil got me hooked on the survival horror genre, and my love for killing zombies in video games is most likely a direct result of this series. I never really bothered with the spin-offs, and I actually did get far in Resident Evil 0 because I hated having to control two people. Resident Evil 4 was amazing though, and probably my favorite game from the last console generation. While it was a departure from the “survival” aspect of previous titles (powerful weapons with random ammo and money drops from enemies), the game was still amazingly well done and kept the Resident Evil vibe.

I had my doubts with Resident Evil 5. After all, I didn’t think RE5 would be able to live up to RE4, just because of how amazing RE4 was. When I heard that RE5 would focus on having two characters so that you could play co-op and online, I groaned. Great – the one thing that prevented me from beating Resident Evil 0, worrying about two characters instead of one, would be in the new Resident Evil. With early screenshots looking like it was in the desert, it gave me an Army of Two-like vibe. So is it basically Resident Evil 4 meets Army of Two?

Resident Evil 4 + Army of Two
The short answer of it is yes. Just like Army of Two, I can see the game being pretty enjoyable when co-op’ing with a friend online or split-screen. But of course, the big problem with co-op is that playing the game solo and having to babysit an AI partner is a definite negative. Not only do you have to worry about yourself, but now you could see the Game Over screen if your AI partner does something stupid (which WILL happen). Some people, myself included, believe that the detriment to playing with an AI partner is not worth the addition of online co-op. I would rather not have co-op at all since I still believe the Resident Evil series to be a solo affair. And what’s worse, Gears of War 1 and 2 has already done this type of co-op thing and you won’t see a Game Over screen if Dom messes up since you can still help him back up. More co-op games is certainly not a bad thing, but if going “Army of Two” is supposed to be the innovative new direction the series is going, I can’t help but be disappointed.

What’s in the Demo?
The demo has two levels that you can choose from. Upon starting either of the levels for the first time off the disc, you have to wait about a minute before the game loads. Subsequent playthroughs on the level load almost immediately so the first load probably caches a lot of the data. Each level is about 15 minutes long and you are able to play them solo, online, or offline co-op. I played through both levels solo. Skip the rest of this section if you want to experience the demo without any spoilers.

—————DEMO SPOILERS——————-
The left scenario starts you off in a small shanty town with maybe four or five small shacks. You start in one shack and the zombies notice you so they all try to flood the shack. You are able to slide shelves in front of the doors to slow them from entering, but they eventually bust through and you and your partner have to kill enough of them before some start dropping in from the ceiling and a guy with a huge axe confronts you.

I died a few times in this first room while trying to figure out the controls and remembering how RE4 was supposed to be played. Once I unlearned modern gaming controls and  “relearned” the antiquated RE-style controls, I cleared out the shack and killed the axe guy by shotgunning him in the face, then meleeing him, and alternating that combo until he was killed. After the axe guy was killed, it seemed like the rate that the zombie villagers spawned and came after you was reduced so I explored the rest of the tiny town. You start with the handgun and shotgun, and are able to find the SMG. I ran through some homes, picking up health and ammo before getting to a large gate where a helicopter came and took it down with some missles or something. That concluded the left scenario.

The right scenario starts you off with a handgun and rifle, and also demonstrates a little more of the co-op style play and a chainsaw boss. After learning how to play with the left scenario, I made my way easily through the right scenario without dying.

Shortly after the first part where you enter a home to find some items and fight some villagers, you come across a building where you can lift your partner up but you have to go around. While you make your way around, your partner helps shoot enemies for you. Then the two of you enter a building where you help your partner jump to the neighboring building. While your partner decends the neighboring building, you help snipe villagers that attack her. When she gets to the bottom floor, you two meet up again and head towards the end of the level, but are confronted with a chainsaw-wielding maniac like in RE4. Fortunately, with several red barrels lining the streets, it was a matter of running, turning, and shooting each barrel as the chainsaw dude and multiple villagers chased after us.

I ran in a circle around a building while the chainsaw dude pursued. Eventually, once all of the red barrels were exhausted, I began tossing my large number of grenades. Throw one, stun him, then melee him, run off, and repeat. After enough grenades he was killed off, dropping a key to unlock the gate that would end the level. It was a pretty fun fight for me, but some people complain that your AI partner can get caught and chainsawed by the boss, ending your game completely. I was lucky enough not to encounter that, as my AI partner ran whenever I did.
—————END DEMO SPOILERS——————-

Things I Liked
Graphics – they look great. Definitely feels next gen, and I’m actually a little scared now to boot up Resident Evil 4 on my parents’ Wii when I go home to visit them for the holidays because I’ll see how dated the game looks. Unfortunately, with the levels in the demo taking place in the desert, there is not much in terms of color variety but I was pretty impressed. I’ve been playing Gears of War 2 for the last week or so, and I was quite happy with the Resident Evil 5 graphics.

Gameplay – it’s RE4 on crack so if you were a fan of RE4, you honestly can’t “hate” RE5. You can still shoot enemies in the head or legs to stun them so you can go up and do a melee attack like in RE4 and enemies drop items and ammo at random so you’ll never really run out. There are also plenty of items to find in drawers, breakable objects like barrels, etc. so it maintains the same core mechanics of its predecessor.

Things I Didn’t Quite Like
Not being able to move while aiming – I forgot that this was how it was in RE4 since I haven’t played that game in years. Seriously? If I want to aim my gun at an enemy, I can’t move at all like any other 3rd person shooter I’ve recently played? Gears of War 2? Dead Space? I’m stuck planted in this one position while I try to aim for my enemies’ legs to disable them and the rest of the zombies close in on me? It’s idiotic from a gameplay perspective. It’s not like you’re setting up a turret that has to be in the same position when you raise your arms to shoot your gun. This “stop to aim” gameplay decision made the controls to RE5 seem very clumsy and awkward. Fortunately, I was able to get used to them after playing it enough and while it’s not a deal-breaker to me, it was quite a disappointment that this was how the combat was going to be handled since it’s so unintuitive.

Real-time Inventory Management – while the inventory management was somewhat innovative, there are more negatives than positives that come out of it. Each of the two characters has 9 inventory spaces set up like a square. If you think of the square like a telephone pad, items assigned to the numbers 2 (up), 4 (left), 6 (right), and 8 (down), can automatically be “quick-equipped” by hitting the corresponding arrow on the D-pad of your controller during gameplay. So if you assign the handgun as the top middle slot and shotgun as the left middle slot, you can just hit the d-pad up or left to change between the weapons without going to your inventory screen. You have to do this, as the game no longer pauses when you go to the inventory screen. What makes the lack of pausing in your inventory screen worse is that you have to now keep track of not only your own bullets remaining, but your partners’ too. If the AI runs out of bullets in her handgun, you have to open up your inventory and move ammo from your bag to hers before she can start firing again. At the same time, you can ask for anything out of her inventory and she will hand it over. All of this while the game remains unpaused and zombies are surrounding you two makes the inventory management more of a hassle than ever before. To be fair, the HUD does tell you how many bullets you and your partner have remaining, but sometimes it just gets too hectic.

“Final” Demo Thoughts
It’s obviously too early to say how this game will be, but right now it does have the RE4 vibe but it plays nowhere near as smooth as Dead Space, the most comparable game to it. In my opinion, the game would have benefited more if it went in the direction of Dead Space instead of Army of Two. But what else can I say? The game was enjoyable from a RE fan’s point of view, but it didn’t make me more excited to play this game when it hits in March. It fact, if anything, it made me less excited, having recently come off of Dead Space. Hopefully moving while aiming gets added into the game before its release, but I’m not holding my breath since it’s releasing in a few months so the game is practically already done. I’ll still get it of course, as it does share enough similarities to RE4 to be enjoyable but I can’t help but feel that the ball was dropped a bit on RE5.